A human rights based approach to participation in health reform: Experiences from the implementation of constitutional court orders in Colombia

This paper analyses how participation was understood and put in place by the bodies in charge of implementing the Colombian Constitutional Court’s Decision T-760/2008, which ordered extensive reforms of the health system. Following a comprehensive human rights approach, the Court required this process to ensure the participation of the scientific community as well as users of health services. The decision should be seen in the context of Colombian politics, where issues concerning the health system are highly polarised. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the process of implementation of T- 760/2008 during the three years following the decision. The use of the comprehensive human rights framework, adopted by the Court itself, as an analytical tool brings to the analysis some elements needed to evaluate the extent to which the process was participatory, and to describe the reasons for this.